Download or read book Am I a Jew written by Theodore Ross and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes someone Jewish? Theodore Ross was nine years old when he moved with his mother from New York City to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Once there, his mother decided, for both personal and spiritual reasons, to have her family pretend not to be Jewish. He went to an Episcopal school, where he studied the New Testament, sang in the choir, and even took Communion. Later, as an adult, he wondered: Am I still Jewish? Seeking an answer, Ross traveled around the country and to Israel, visiting a wide variety of Jewish communities. From “Crypto-Jews” in New Mexico and secluded ultra-devout Orthodox towns in upstate New York to a rare Classical Reform congregation in Kansas City, Ross tries to understand himself by experiencing the diversity of Judaism. Quirky and self-aware, introspective and impassioned, Am I a Jew? is a story about the universal struggle to define a relationship (or lack thereof) with religion.
Download or read book A Letter in the Scroll written by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2004-04-16 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For too long, Jews have defined themselves in light of the bad things that have happened to them. And it is true that, many times in the course of history, they have been nearly decimated: when the First and Second Temples were destroyed, when the Jews were expelled from Spain, when Hitler proposed his Final Solution. Astoundingly, the Jewish people have survived catastrophe after catastrophe and remained a thriving and vibrant community. The question Rabbi Jonathan Sacks asks is, quite simply: How? How, in the face of such adversity, has Judaism remained and flourished, making a mark on human history out of all proportion to its numbers? Written originally as a wedding gift to his son and daughter-in-law, A Letter in the Scroll is Rabbi Sacks's personal answer to that question, a testimony to the enduring strength of his religion. Tracing the revolutionary series of philosophical and theological ideas that Judaism created -- from covenant to sabbath to formal education -- and showing us how they remain compellingly relevant in our time, Sacks portrays Jewish identity as an honor as well as a duty. The Ba'al Shem Tov, an eighteenth-century rabbi and founder of the Hasidic movement, famously noted that the Jewish people are like a living Torah scroll, and every individual Jew is a letter within it. If a single letter is damaged or missing or incorrectly drawn, a Torah scroll is considered invalid. So too, in Judaism, each individual is considered a crucial part of the people, without whom the entire religion would suffer. Rabbi Sacks uses this metaphor to make a passionate argument in favor of affiliation and practice in our secular times, and invites us to engage in our dynamic and inclusive tradition. Never has a book more eloquently expressed the joys of being a Jew. This is the story of one man's hope for the future -- a future in which the next generation, his children and ours, will happily embrace the beauty of the world's oldest religion.
Download or read book How I Stopped Being a Jew written by Shlomo Sand and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shlomo Sand was born in 1946, in a displaced person’s camp in Austria, to Jewish parents; the family later migrated to Palestine. As a young man, Sand came to question his Jewish identity, even that of a “secular Jew.” With this meditative and thoughtful mixture of essay and personal recollection, he articulates the problems at the center of modern Jewish identity. How I Stopped Being a Jew discusses the negative effects of the Israeli exploitation of the “chosen people” myth and its “holocaust industry.” Sand criticizes the fact that, in the current context, what “Jewish” means is, above all, not being Arab and reflects on the possibility of a secular, non-exclusive Israeli identity, beyond the legends of Zionism.
Download or read book What Is A Jew written by Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to the beliefs, traditions and practices of Judaism that answers questions for both Jew and Gentile. Rabbi Kertzer answers over 100 of the most commonly asked questions about Jewish life and customs, including: What is the Jewish attitude toward intermarriage? Toward birth control? Do Jews believe in equality between the sexes? Are Jews forbidden to read the New Testament? What is the basis for the Dietary Laws? For non-Jews who want to learn about the Jewish way of life. For Jews who wish to rediscover forgotten traditions and beliefs. “This portrayal of the Jewish way of looking at things attempts to convey some of the warmth, the glow and the serenity of Judaism: the enchantment of fine books; the captivating color of Hasidism;...the mirthful spirit of scholars more than sixteen centuries ago; and the abiding sense of compassion that permeates our tradition. It is in this way—and only in this way that anyone can give a meaningful answer to the question, ‘What is a Jew?’”—Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer
Download or read book Am I A Murderer written by Calel Perechodnik and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-03-13 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this moving memoir, a young Polish Jew chronicles his life under the Nazis. In the vain hope of protecting himself and his family, Calel Perechodnik made the wrenching decision to become a ghetto policeman in a small town near Warsaw. The true tragedy of his choice becomes clear when during the Aktion he must witness his own wife and child forced to board a train to the Treblinka extermination camp. Filled with loathing for the Germans, the Poles, his Jewish brethren, and himself, Perechodnik fled the ghetto to shelter with a Polish woman in Warsaw. In the course of 105 terror-filled days in hiding, he poured out his poignant story. Written while Nazi boots pounded the streets of the neighborhood and while his tortured memory was painfully fresh, this memoir has a rare immediacy and raw power. Shortly before his death in 1944, he entrusted the precious diary to a Polish friend. The document was eventually deposited in the Yad Vashem Archives in Jerusalem. Left nearly forgotten for half a century, it was finally published in Poland in 1993. We owe a great debt to historian Frank Fox for bringing us this sensitive translation, which reminds us anew of the power and truth of historical memory.
Download or read book Why I Am A Jew written by Edmond Fleg and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2022-10-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book The Great Partnership written by Jonathan Sacks and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-09-11 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned author and rabbi discusses the relationship between science and religion and the importance of the coexistence of both in that religion is the search for meaning and science is the search for explanation. 20,000 first printing.
Download or read book written by Moshe Ḥayyim Luzzatto and published by Feldheim Publishers. This book was released on 1983 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores Divine regulation of the world. With Rabbi Yosef Begun's marginal notes. Vowelized, facing Hebrew and English texts.
Download or read book I Am Jewish written by Ruth Pearl and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Being Jewish. What does it mean—today—and for the future? Listen in as Jews of all backgrounds reflect, argue, and imagine. When Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was brutally murdered in Pakistan, many Jews were particularly touched by his last words affirming his Jewish identity. Many were moved to reflect on or analyze their feelings toward their lives as Jews. The saying "two Jews, three opinions" well reflects the Jewish community's broad range of views on any topic. I Am Jewish captures this richness of interpretation and inspires Jewish people of all backgrounds to reflect upon and take pride in their identity. Contributions, ranging from major essays to a paragraph or a sentence, come from adults as well as young people in the form of personal feelings, statements of theology, life stories, and historical reflections. Despite the diversity, common denominators shine through clearly and distinctly. Contributors include: Ehud Barak • Sylvia Boorstein • Edgar M. Bronfman • Alan Colmes • Alan Dershowitz • Kirk Douglas • Richard Dreyfuss • Kitty Dukakis • Dianne Feinstein • Tovah Feldshuh • Debbie Friedman • Milton Friedman • Thomas L. Friedman • Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Nadine Gordimer • David Hartman • Moshe Katsav • Larry King • Francine Klagsbrun • Harold Kushner • Lawrence Kushner • Shia LaBeouf • Norman Lamm • Norman Lear • Julius Lester • Bernard-Henri Lévy • Bernard Lewis • Daniel Libeskind • Joe Lieberman • Deborah E. Lipstadt • Joshua Malina • Michael Medved • Ruth W. Messinger • Amos Oz • Cynthia Ozick • Shimon Peres • Martin Peretz • Dennis Prager • Anne Roiphe • Sandy Eisenberg Sasso • Vidal Sassoon • Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi • Daniel Schorr • Harold M. Schulweis • Lynn Schusterman • Natan Sharansky • Gary Shteyngart • Sarah Silverman • Michael H. Steinhardt • Kerri Strug • Lawrence H. Summers • Mike Wallace • Elie Wiesel • Leon Wieseltier • Sherwin T. Wine • Ruth R. Wisse • Peter Yarrow • A. B. Yehoshua • Eric H. Yoffie
Download or read book The Home We Build Together written by Jonathan Sacks and published by Bloomsbury Continuum. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chief Rabbi's thesis on the future of British society and the dangers facing liberal democracy. A counterweight to his earlier book, The Dignity of Difference, Sacks makes the case for "integrated diversity" within a framework of shared political values.
Download or read book Why I Am a Muslim written by Raheel Farooq and published by . This book was released on 2020-04 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can be a greater testimony to the honesty behind this book than the almost certainty that Muslims, Christians and Jews are all going to disown it? Probably a read!
Download or read book Once a Jew Always a Jew written by David Dvorkin and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Worldwide, the number of people who call themselves Jews is about 14 million.They may all call themselves Jews, but what they mean by that name varies widely. These self−described Jews range from the most Orthodox, who have submitted themselves entirely to the imagined dictates of an imaginary god, to those who practice various forms of Judaism that are so watered down that they scarcely qualify as a religion, to those who observe no part of Judaism at all other than the celebration of a festival that they may call Hanukkah but that is in reality merely a Judaized version of Christmas.In this short book, I focus on the United States, which until recently had the largest Jewish population in the world−−just under six million self−identified Jews. Although it was recently surpassed by Israel, America arguably still has the most politically, socially, and theologically influential Jewish population in the world. According to a survey conducted in 2013 by the respected Pew Research Center, of those almost six million American Jews, 22% "describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or having no particular religion[.]" In the case of the youngest adult American Jews, the so−called Millennial generation, "32% describe themselves as having no religion and identify as Jewish on the basis of ancestry, ethnicity or culture."This large group of Jews, which is a growing percentage of American Jewry, as the above Millennial number shows, is commonly referred to "secular Jews," although some of them prefer the label "atheist Jews." These are the people I want to discuss in this book.I contend that they are not Jews in any meaningful sense of the word. They may wish to call themselves Jews for a number of emotional reasons, but I call upon them to be intellectually honest and accept that they have ceased to be Jews. They are ex−Jews.The contrary argument is based on the idea encapsulated in the phrase "once a Jew, always a Jew." For the anti−Semite, this phrase is used as a slur. It refers to negative character traits supposedly possessed by all Jews.To Jews who think that there can be such a thing as a secular Jew, the phrase refers to some innate quality, entirely apart from religion, that distinguishes Jews from their non−Jewish neighbors.What is that innate quality? That's the crux of the issue. Let's go hunting for it.
Download or read book Am i a Jew written by Theodore Ross and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I was nine years old when my mother forced me to convert to Christianity'.' When Theodore Ross moved from New York City to small-town Mississippi, his mother insisted that the family pretend to not be Jewish. He was sent to an Episcopal school, where he studied the Bible, sang in the choir, and even took communion. As an adult, he abandoned the religious charade, but wondered: Am I a Jew' In search of an answer, Ross immersed himself within communities on the fringes of Jewish identity''Crypto-Jews, ' 'Lost Tribes, ' the ultra-Orthodox, and more. Filled with humor, curiosity, and sincerity, Am I a Jew' explores America's riotous religious diversity, and one man's quest to stake a claim within it.
Download or read book Why Am I a Jew written by Emil Gustav Hirsch and published by . This book was released on 1895 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Am I a Jew written by Theodore Ross and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-08-27 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I was nine years old when my mother forced me to convert to Christianity….” When Theodore Ross moved from New York City to small-town Mississippi, his mother insisted that the family pretend to not be Jewish. He was sent to an Episcopal school, where he studied the Bible, sang in the choir, and even took communion. As an adult, he abandoned the religious charade, but wondered: Am I a Jew? In search of an answer, Ross immersed himself within communities on the fringes of Jewish identity—“Crypto-Jews,” “Lost Tribes,” the ultra-Orthodox, and more. Filled with humor, curiosity, and sincerity, Am I a Jew? explores America’s riotous religious diversity, and one man’s quest to stake a claim within it.
Download or read book Why Am I a Jew written by Michael Baum and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-01-06 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book starts by considering mankind's role in the complex ecological system of our planet and then considers the place of mankind in the cosmos while also looking inward at our own microcosm. It then explains how these scientific insights lead to the ontological search for God. The good, the bad, and the ugly sides of religious beliefs are considered and it is suggested that we are looking for "God" in the wrong place. The book then explains a justification for the author's apparent cognitive dissonance of retaining a Jewish identity whilst denying the existence of a God with the attributes of man. The author then argues that we should look for "God" in the infinitely small spaces within ourselves instead of the infinitely large spaces of the universe. His "God" would not mind whether individuals believed in "him" or not, so long as they practiced their life as the author practices his medicine: in a never-ending quest to improve the length and quality of the lives of his patients. This book should improve the reader's knowledge of the philosophers who wrote on the ontology of God. It also rediscovers that Baruch Spinoza had already reached the conclusions of modern-day thinkers more than 350 years ago.
Download or read book Why I Am A Jew written by Edmond Fleg and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2013-05-31 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A delightful book written from a grandfather to his unborn grandchild about life growing up as a Jewish male in an increasingly secular France. Written with warmth and humor this is a real treat of a book.
